12 New Year Conservation Resolutions

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1. English Heritage (or whatever they’ll be calling themselves this year):
“At Stonehenge we’ll be more of a statutory heritage champion and less of a Tory election agent”.

2 and 3. National Trust:
“At Stonehenge, we’ll do what we say is our mission, not what someone in Whitehall says they’d like us to do”.
“We’ll finally admit that letting people brandalise or sloganise monuments is always a bad idea”.

4 and 5. Portable Antiquities Scheme:
“We’ll simply tell the truth to artefact hunters, farmers and the public”.
“We’ll lobby the Government to make this spiffing update the last.”

6 and 7. Landowners:
“Like with sheep and spuds, we’ll let nothing off our farms without us seeing it (and knowing its value).”
“We’ll keep in mind every archaeological find needs reporting (whatever any non-archaeologist says).”

8. Academics and the Alliance to Reduce Crime against Heritage:
“We’ll finally admit that not telling a landowner about a significant find (and therefore being unable to report it) DOES conform to our definition of “heritage crime” and is just as damaging as nighthawking”.

9. Shropshire Council:
“At Oswestry, we’ll  listen to informed opinion and ask ourselves every morning “who benefits from ignoring it?”

10 and 11. Cadw:
1. “We will try to be consistent, unbiased and professional.”
2. “We will try much harder to protect archaeology.”

12. Archaeologists:
“We’ll fret less about community archaeology and more about the community’s archaeology”